Thursday, March 6, 2014

Moccasin Trace Super Book Blast

“The
most engaging and brilliantly crafted historical work since Margaret Mitchell’s
great classic.”

Barbara
Casey

Author,
The Gospel According to Prissy

Hamilton
Ingram looked out across the fertile Georgia bottomlands that were Moccasin
Hollows, seeing holdings it had taken generations of Ingrams to build. No drop of slave sweat ever shed in its
creation. It was about the land…his trust,
his duty to preserve it for the generation of Ingrams to come…

It
is July of 1859, a month of sweltering dog days and feverish emotional
bombast. Life is good for widower
Rundell Ingram and his Hazel-eyed, roan-haired son, Hamilton. Between the two of them, they take care of
Moccasin Hollows, their rustic dogtrot ancestral home, a sprawling non-slave
plantation in the rolling farming country outside Queensborough Towne in east
Georgia. Adjoining Ingram lands is
Wisteria Bend, the vast slave-holding plantation of Andrew and Corinthia Greer,
their daughter Sarah, and son Benjamin.

Both
families share generations of long-accepted traditions, and childhood playmates
are no longer children. The rangy,
even-tempered Norman-Scottish young Hamilton is smitten with Sarah, who has
become an enticing capricious beauty—the young lovers more in love with each
passing day, and only pleasant times ahead of them.

But
a blood tide of war is sweeping across the South, a tide that might be
impossible to stand before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpt
Four:

The Captain lowered his brass spyglass. "My apologies for having to disturb
you," he said to Hamilton. With
full steam and sail for now we have speed on their lead ship. They'll try to angle us off from the inlet
this side of Santa Rosa, but I mean to give 'em no chance of that. Too shallow in there for them to clear the
reef. Once we get lee to the
shoals..." he raised his glass.
"Lead frigate is gaining."
He shook his head. "First
time we've picked up anything this close in."

Sarah walked to the bridge railing and fixed her eyes toward
the tall white sails of the onrushing juggernaut. Her father's enemy, Hamilton's enemy, her
enemy; until this moment the battles had been some place far away. Tall and sleek in the distance, coming toward
them, a deadly beauty in the mad fury of men's devotion to destruction and
death.

Hamilton asked the Captain, "Will they try to
board?"

His jaw set, "When we don't heave to, she'll try to
force us to ground. Failing that they'll
use their guns."

The thought of this pirate flag bearing down on them, their
seafarers clamoring over the side, stabbed Hamilton into a heated white-hot
hate of Yankies -- good ones, bad ones, any of them.

"They're not boardin' us," the Captain said. "We'll scuttle first. No Yankee's puttin' a foul foot on my ship,
as long as..."

The distant muzzle flash was followed by a muffled boom
rolling across the water. Hamilton
sheltered Sarah in his arms. The shot
smacked the water off their port bow, sending up a tall blossoming white plume
tall and falling back in a graceful slow splash.

"...a warning shot for us to heave to," the
Captain frowned. "Allows 'em[+>
to ]adjust their range." He eyed
Sarah, "Missus Ingram..." he agonized, "To avoid exposing you to
harm, I am prepared to yield to..."

"You will do no such thing!" Sarah bristled. Her head turned toward this full-sailed
invader. "These philistines are in
our waters -- attacking us!"
Sarah's blood was up.

"Sarah, the Captain's right," Hamilton said

"No, I say!"
Sarah whirled to face both men.
"We will not yield to those...those barbarians!" Greer fiery rage showed in full vigor. Her fists clenched, "You said you could
make a run for it! Our armies need your
cargo. If there's a chance..." She glowered toward the oncoming menace.

Hamilton saw not the pampered daughter of a rich plantation
father, but a wind-whipped chalk-faced New World Jeanne d'Arc girded for
battle, blazing with indignation, exchanging armoured horse for ship and
English for Yankie, and loved her the more for it.

He nodded to the Captain, "We run for it."

"I know how Papa felt," her lip quivered,
"...when he said he hated runnin'."

"...to fight another day," Hamilton hugged her
tighter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

With
postgraduate degrees and faculty appointments in several medical universities,
Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and
Jerusalem. In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate
neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction.

Hawk
began writing mysteries for his school newspaper. His works of fiction,
historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers are not
genre-centered, but plot-character driven, and reflect his southwest upbringing
in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated
for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction
and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial
protagonist in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series… murder and mayhem with a touch
of romance. Vault of Secrets, the first book in the Ingram series, was followed
by Nymrod Resurrection, Blood and Gold, and The Lady of Corpsewood Manor. All
have received national attention. Hawk’s
latest release in the Ingram series is due out this fall with another
mystery-thriller work out in 2014. The Bleikovat Event, the first volume in The
Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series, was released in 2012.

"Without
question, Hawk is one of the most gifted and imaginative writers I have had the
pleasure to represent. His reading fans have something special to look forward
to in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Intrigue, murder, deception and
conspiracy--these are the things that take Hawk's main character, Navy
ex-SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram, from his South Carolina
ancestral home of Moccasin Hollow to the dirty backrooms of the nation's
capital and across Europe and the Middle East."

7 comments:

Thank you for hosting my historical romance Moccasin Trace. For the readers who follow the Craige Ingram Mystery Series, Moccasin Trace, set during the Civil War, provides the Scottish-Normandr bloodlines and background of protagonist SEAL/PI Craige Ingram in that contemporary thriller/mystery series, and is available in hardback, trade paperback and Kindle.

Andra Lyn -History is fascinating & too many ignore it. The setting of Moccasin Trace is a pivotal upheaval in way more than North America AND it ingrains foundations, character & traditions in the birthed & bred Southron -

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If you are trying to learn a new technique, this book is for you. The projects are small and portable and work out quickly.

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